


I, Robocop

by Bionic (Vexza)



Category: RoboCop (1987), RoboCop - All Media Types
Genre: AI Rampancy, Canon-Typical Violence, May add tags, Other, Unbeta'd, my first work on ao3 omg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 12:15:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4221348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vexza/pseuds/Bionic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But he's not a human! He's just a robot who thought he was and, hey, listen, if you really want to help him, you need to try to understand what it's like for him to realize he's not who everyone thinks he is."</p><p>Constable Alex Murphy was killed in a horrific gang attack, but the magic of medicine and science brought him back as OCP Crime Prevention Unit 001. Didn't it? Chaptered fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I, Robocop

**Author's Note:**

> well here we go, this is a fic about Alex J Murphy coming to terms with the fact that Alex J Murphy is fricking dead, and boy oh boy is it gonna be a fun ride

"Drop your weapon."

There was hardly any inflection in the demand. There was no sense of urgency, only a hard, resolute tone that communicated that the demand had _better_ be followed, or things were going to get ugly.

The appearance of Officers Murphy and Lewis had certainly spooked the man holding the knife, and his bulging eyes flicked back and forth between the two with an air reminiscent of a cornered animal. His tight-fitting white polo clung to his abdomen with sweat that practically poured from every orifice of his body. His baseball cap had been knocked askew in what had obviously been a long struggle, and his appearance coupled with what Robocop detected as an elevated heartrate all led the two officers to assume that this confrontation was going to come to a close _very_ soon- whether or not this end would be peaceful remained to be seen.

Lewis's eyes flicked from his face to the knife, and Murphy _felt_ rather than saw her smug grin. "There's an overused line I could say here, but, you know? I think I'll hold onto it. For your sake." She said with affected sympathy, and gestured at the ground with her own weapon a little more forcefully than she had the first time. " _Drop it_."

Murphy kept his gun trained on the floor and his eyes trained on the suspect throughout the whole exchange. He could have his gun sighted on the man's head in a matter of moments, which he could calculate to the nearest millisecond if he felt like overachieving, or got bored, but instead he focused his peripheral systems on assessing the status of the woman crumpled on the floor.

The man no longer had his weapon within striking distance of his victim, and Murphy was certain that he could have two bullets in his forehead before he could even think about stabbing her again. Her sobs had devolved into pained, sudden exhales, but as tortured as the sounds were, they were clear signs that she was still alive. He couldn't get a clear line of sight on her face, lying brokenly on the floor as she was, so her identity remained a mystery, for now. She was likely the renter of this apartment, he deduced, since it wasn't in the perp's name. Was she Miss Mary Ardent?

In the beat it had taken Murphy to process what data he had scrounged up on the identity of the woman, the perp had taken to pointing his knife ineffectually at the two officers. It was sheathed in slimy red blood, and dripped onto the floor, onto the woman, and down the perp's arm. Lewis and Murphy adopted identical, flat expressions at the threat.

"You gotta... you better-" The perp stammered, and then followed up with a hastily mumbled bit of nonsense. The two officers paused for a beat while the perp obviously tried to bring himself back from the brink of a full-on panic attack. Murphy blinked, and his facial recognition software provided him with a quick dossier on the man.

"Nicholas Jackson." He intoned, and the suspect jumped. Bingo. "You are under arrest. Please drop your weapon and put your hands above your head. If you do not comply, I-"

And that was that. Jackson had had quite enough of this, and he dropped his bloody knife, turned, and sprinted away, deftly leaping over the couch on his way out. Lewis swore and lowered her gun, immediately moving to chase after him. Murphy almost did the same (he was faster, after all), but Lewis enjoyed chasing people down, and within the confines of the apartment complex, the perp would be hard pressed to evade the much smaller cop for too long. Still, he kept one audio receptor tuned into the sounds of the chase as he holstered his weapon and moved to the injured woman's side.

"Ma'am-" He began, and gently touched the woman's shoulder. She flinched immediately, and although the movement was weak and ultimately useless, Murphy removed his hand. "Ma'am, my name is Officer Alex Murphy. Can you speak? Can you move? Medics are on their way. Can you tell me your name?"

The woman responded to none of his questions, merely allowed her heaving breaths to weaken into whispering sobs. He did, however, manage to coax her into lying on her back over the course of a minute or two, and his database quickly confirmed her identity as Miss Ardent.

"Medics are on their way." He repeated, with the same inflection he had used on Jackson to get him to drop the knife. Miss Ardent didn't seem to find his tone comforting, and her sobs began anew. Murphy frowned ever so slightly.

Her wound- _wounds_ \- were grievous. It was only a matter of time before she succumbed to her injuries, and the ambulances were still a minute and a half away. That was too long. It was still very possible that she would survive, but there was no first aid Murphy could apply to help her chances.

“I don’t want to die.” She finally choked out, and fixed her teary gaze on Murphy’s impenetrable metal visor. Behind it, Murphy shifted his eyes to the left a fraction so that he was only staring at her cheek.

“There is only a moderate chance that you will die, ma’am.” He replied matter-of-factly, at least managing to lower his voice a little bit. The woman sobbed once more, but continued to stare at him. What did she want from him? He didn’t have any medical supplies on his person- did she want his sympathy, perhaps?

“Got him in cuffs, Murphy.” Came Lewis’s breathless and triumphant radio call in his ear. So she didn’t need his help. He felt a small twinge of dread (?) in the pit of his hardware. Lewis didn’t need his help, which meant he had to...

He looked into the wounded woman’s eyes again. He had to stay here, with her, until help arrived. He could hear the sirens now, but they were still too far away. What exactly was he supposed to do in the minute it would take for the ambulance to arrive and the medics to make their way up the stairs? He had witnessed death before, but he had never been called upon to comfort the sick and the dying. It was outside of his realm of expertise- not part of his job description, if you would. He was just a robot.

 _No_. Some part of him surged forth. _I am Alex J Murphy, officer of the law._ This was his job. He was here to serve and protect, and sometimes the public called upon him to offer comfort in times of great stress.

But he couldn’t. He stared down at Miss Ardent, who was mumbling something to him softly, and nothing issued forth from his throat. What was he supposed to say? I’m sorry? He had never done this before.

Another beat passed, and Murphy placed a heavy hand on Miss Ardent’s arm again. This time, she didn’t flinch; she merely began to cry anew, though most of her tears had dried out already. Murphy sat beside her as the sirens grew ever closer, and he couldn’t help but be uncomfortable. The woman was on her deathbed, or near enough to it, and there was nothing, _nothing_ he could do to ease her suffering. Emotional quandaries like this were not his forte, and the oversight of his programming had never been more apparent than it was right now.

As life continued to ebb from the woman, Murphy felt his discomfort being slowly replaced with frustration. He could feel emotions. He was feeling emotions right now! He felt vindictive when they caught a perp, felt pride when Lewis and his other fellow officers closed a particularly tough case, felt satisfied when he returned to the lab after a day of good work- so why was he failing to empathize now, of all times?

The ambulance arrived. Murphy informed Miss Ardent when he heard the EMTs pounding up the stairs, and made way for them when they finally arrived. He turned and left the apartment without another word or glance in the woman’s direction.

Out in the parking lot, Lewis had already forced Jackson into the back of their patrol car, and was leaning up against the driver’s side, a fresh stick of bubblegum already wedged between her teeth. She grinned when she saw him approaching.

“That was some good shit, partner.” Her face became serious for a half-second. “Sorry for ditching you back there.”

Murphy waved the apology off, and moved around to the passenger side door. He folded his arms across the top of the car and leaned, the entire vehicle shifting with his weight. “Has this one said anything?”

“Naw.” Lewis gave Jackson a cursory look, but seemed disinterested with the man. She popped a bubble with her gum, which was still fragrant enough for Murphy to detect it, and then nodded at the apartment building.

“How’s our vic? She gonna make it?”

He didn’t respond immediately. Rather, he too glanced back at the apartment building. It wasn’t the pretty, but things in Detroit nowadays rarely were. There were a few denizens in their pajamas speaking to the other officers, but all in all they seemed rather disinterested in the proceedings. If anything, they seemed annoyed at having been woken by the ruckus. The medics suddenly appeared from the indoor stairwell, a stretcher in tow. A few of the citizens leaned over it and said a few words to Miss Ardent.

“It looks like she’s going to be fine.” He finally responded.

“Let’s get this guy down to lockup then, huh?” Lewis climbed into the patrol car without waiting for his answer, and Murphy quickly followed.

As they headed back to the police station, with both Jackson and Lewis maintaining dead silence, Murphy had an unfortunate amount of time to mull over the interaction he had had with Miss Ardent. He wanted to say he lacked shared experience with her, and thus was unable to empathize with the dying woman, but that wasn’t quite true. He had been dying- even died before, and so he was probably more qualified than any other officer on the force to comfort the poor woman. And yet, he hadn’t. He didn’t quite understand what had gone wrong, but he had found himself unable to connect emotionally with the victim. It wasn’t the first time.

It just didn’t make sense. He knew he had emotions, so why couldn’t he- well, use them? He knew what they were like, or _supposed_ to be like. He watched the lights of nighttime Detroit fly past the patrol car’s window without really seeing them. He had been human once. Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy, this first chapter is no bueno, but we gotta get the intro out of the way before we dive into the meat of the story, don't we? this chapter subject to change if i think of something better later on.


End file.
